It’s March - The Best Month to Apply for an Internship (and get accepted!)

More than half of today's college students participate in internships, and a growing number of employers are offering internships. Even colleges and universities are increasingly encouraging students to participate in internships. The time to apply is now!

Internships give students an opportunity to put their college skills to test in a real work setting, and very often increases their chances of being hired after graduation. Although landing an internship may seem like a daunting task, it can be as easy as 1-2-3 if students know what to do. Like, applying early. March is the best month to apply for an internship.

What students need to know

New data from LinkedIn boils down all the facts and places them into three primary areas of information that will help college students not only land an internship, but land the right internship. The three areas are:

Where students should be looking

When students should be looking

Which industries offer the most internships

Where students should be looking

Large, metro cities offer the best chances for college students to find an internship. If students focus on big cities like Boston, New York, Atlanta, Seattle, Washington D.C., San Francisco, and others, they will find many more opportunities for internships available to them.

When students should be looking

Overall, employers begin recruiting interns six to eight months before their start date, according to the 2016 NACE Students Survey, published every year by the National Association of Colleges and Employers. This means students cannot procrastinate looking for an internship or they will be left out in the cold. Finding an internship requires careful planning -- timing is everything. According to LinkedIn, the best time to start is in March. Right now, there are more than 17,000 internship openings on LinkedIn. After March, the availability of internships decreases drastically. Bottom line, don't wait!

Top industries for internships

There are some majors that offer more internships than others. Students need to know this. This is not to suggest that students need to change their major, but it does mean that students may want to be more flexible in the type of job they are considering within their major in order to increase their chances of finding an internship. For example, a Computer Science major will find more internships if they consider one in software engineering rather than web development.

In addition, students whose major does not generate an abundance of internships may need to be more diligent when searching and more flexible when it comes to location and other factors such as the position itself.